Does your food and beverage operation experience any of these issues?
Increasing costs and expenditure?
More competitors – branded or non-branded?
Problems with finding skilled staff?
Getting mixed customer feedback?
Trouble as a result of authority visits?
Wanting to open a new restaurant, bar or café?
I have worked in many food and beverage operations
The reasons why you will benefit
The food and drink market is very competitive and diverse. From hotel restaurants, independent or branded restaurants, burger vans, cafes, bars, pubs, clubs, takeaways, event operations – just to name a few F&B type businesses, the competition is tremendous. You need to perform above average to succeed!
Do you want to be a market leader and beat the completion?
Are you interested to be more profitable?
Does your business conform to legal requirements?
“I specialise in assisting independent food and drink
businesses to improve profitability and customer service."
Above all, my main focus is to provide tangible solutions that produce positive change in your business and ensure success in the long term.
I am a specialist Restaurant Advisor based outside of Edinburgh and I have worked in Glasgow, Perth, Aberdeen the Highlands and Islands, South of Scotland and other areas of the UK, Europe and many other international countries.
Staying ahead of food & beverage expectations and trends is very complex
- Firstly, your customer service needs to be spot on. This requires well trained staff with a “want-to-do” attitude - not just “can-do”.
- In order to control costs, you must increase the productivity level of your staff.
- Your F&B concept must be fashionable. For this you must know your market well and listen to your customers.
- Hence, you may have to adjust your menu or even the entire concept to respond to rapidly changing trends.
- You must know your competitors, where they are, how they perform, how and why they are successful in order to define your opportunities.
- Flexibility and market knowledge are paramount, so that you are able to respond quickly to market changes and seasonality.
- Finally, you must control all your expenses and costs.
Do you master all this on your own?
Are you able to look ahead and making the right decisions – on your own?
A Restaurant Advisor can make a serious difference to your performance and profitability!
Still not convinced?
Then read a little more about what I do below.
Customer Service and Profit
Profitability and quality of customer service are intrinsically linked.
I specialise in assisting independent food and drink businesses to improve profitability and customer service. Engaging with me as your Restaurant Advisor will increase your chances to be more successful in the future.
My main focus is to provide tangible solutions for positive changes
First of all, assessing your expenditures is top on the list – including staff costs, cost of sales and administrative costs. A thorough and in-depth assessment of your financial performance will most likely find cost savings.
By assessing your staff and management productivity I will conduct a benchmarking exercise and check your main KPIs. Using modern technology can help to enhance your productivity levels and provide valuable information if your read the data correctly. Further, I will be looking at how well you are dealing with your human resources e.g. your strategy to finding, recruiting and retaining staff. By looking at your staff and management training proficiency, I will assess the strength of your training plans and training structure.
Understanding your market positioning is paramount to improve your market competitiveness, select effective marketing methods and ultimately your business success. Your marketing and promotional activities must be streamlined to retain current and attract new customers. The effective engagement with social media is of utmost importance.
Drawing conclusions from your customer feedback will determine whether your standards of performance are sound or must be improved to be meeting your customers’ quality expectations.
Proper Planning Prevents....
Planning ahead is more important than ever. If you don’t have a plan you can’t compare how successful (or not) you are. Your forecasting must be sound to ensure a positive cash flow – your business plan serves as guidance and measure of success.
I believe that these topics are the most important components which influence your business success. They are all interlinked and have an impact on your general business performance. You may do well in some areas but other areas you could improve on.
As a small to medium size operator – can you afford the time and resources to address all these issues?
My role as Restaurant Advisor is to challenge your thinking and decision making process
I provide solutions and energise you and your team
Your Future Challenges
Is your business ready to face any future challenge?
There will be considerable challenges for food and drink businesses in the years to come – especially for non-branded and independent operations. Some of these challenges are:
- Availability of skilled labour – what is your response to tackling this issue?
- Employee costs will increase – what can you do to alleviate this expenditure?
- Cost-of-sale increases are likely to continue based on economic uncertainties – how will you address this issue?
- There may be unforeseen cost increases other than rate and utility cost hikes. Have you considered growing costs to respond to changing customer trends and cyber security costs – have you factored this in?
- Expenditure of using modern technology - are you willing to invest?
- Fast changing trends and customer preferences. Shifting customer loyalties – how will you react and will you be successful minimising the impact on your business?
- Acquisitions or joint ventures may cluster and therefore affect your market – are you ready for this?
- New and more innovative products will suddenly appear – how will you face this challenge?
- Further tightening of food and drink regulations may be forthcoming. How will you make sure that you comply with the law? I offer a comprehensive assessment.
Any of these issues will also affect your profitability.
Are you ready to take action?
I will give you advice concerning your specific questions
Planning a new food or drink venue?
As a Restaurant Advisor, I help new starts and investors who seek to get into the food and drink market.
Having a “good idea” to establish a new food and drink venue is not enough today.
Some fundamental questions must be asked otherwise a project is doomed to fail.
I have seen it!
Looking at trends and general market conditions is important when
planning a new food-drink venue but there is much more to consider.
Some of the points I review are
- What is your food and drink concept?
Scrutinising the concept with your key product features such as target market, location, philosophy and design, name, branding, menu offer, pricing, management and staffing and much more is absolutely vital to see if the concept “stacks up”.
- Will your food-drink business succeed under current and future market conditions?
I believe that without thoroughly assessing the market you won’t be able to confirm (or otherwise) the project viability and sustainability; your business won’t come off the ground.
- How strong is your financial plan?
An in-depth assessment of your financial model is crucial. From the initial investment, pre-opening and operating budgets to monthly cash-flow projections – your numbers must be very strong to succeed.
- Is your operation well thought through?
This assessment includes all operational matters such as management and staffing criteria, selection and recruitment, establishing standards of performance, policies & procedures, training plans etc.
- Have you considered meeting your legal requirements?
This is an often neglected subject but it will seriously impact a business if not followed. From the initial authority approval to staff training allot of issues can go wrong or are forgotten.
- What is your plan "B"?
Certainly, we must address possible hurdles and potential problems. I have never seen a project and/or product launch go as planned. We need to look at the project time plan who is in charge, who executes. It is vital to know if there any reserves .… and much more!
I test your thoughts and plans
I will provide advice how to overcome catering project challenges